Depend on Me
by Cartwheelrobin
Summary: There were three things the William Sherlock Scott Holmes was aware of: He was stupidly in love with Joan Watson, that the decomposition of a dead body began right after death and she couldn't remember a single thing about him. Fem!John/Sherlock
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One: Head Trauma

Joan follows after Sherlock. The pair was currently being chased by a bloody _murderer_ and his accomplices. "I will kill you if they don't do it first!" She shouted at him, falling behind a bit. His legs were so long and hers, well, not so much. Sherlock had to be at least six feet tall and Joan barely made it to five-two. You couldn't blame her for lagging.

He rolled his eyes and tutted at her, slowing his pace a bit. Eventually, they made it out of the building, which they were being chased around. The goal was to lead them on a wild hunt, buying time for Lestrade to get his force outside so he was able to arrest the crazy bastards and finish the case. Everything was going fairly smooth, that was until one of the mugs that was working with the serial killer grabbed Joan by her hair and pulled her to the ground. _Hard._

She gasped and yelled out in pain. Her scalp and head was throbbing from the sudden jerk to the ground. The man slammed her head down to the floor and she could feel her brain oscillate against her skull. "Joan!" She heard Sherlock yell. She gritted her teeth. She could feel a blood trickle down the side of her temple.

Everything was coming in black and white. Spots dotted her vision. Joan didn't even have enough consciousness to think of a sarcastic comment for being slammed to the ground. She shut her eyes tight, a white light blaring in front of her lids. Pain. All she could think or feel was pain. Obviously she had felt worse, but this was a rather nasty head wound.

There was a bit of commotion, from what she could hear. Every sound made her head pulse more. Her head was slammed into the ground once more, unceremoniously she might add. Then she heard a body fall to the floor and then hands were on her. Larger hands. She was being lifted- it was Sherlock. A groan left her lips as she leaned against him. She tried opening her eyes, but winced at the bright light of the sun.

Then there was black. Everything turned to black. The last thing Joan Watson remembers is being set down on a cot. It was also the only thing she remembered, that and her name.

Joan woke up covered in a blanket and an IV in her arm. There was the sent of disinfectant that she knew all too well. She was in a hospital. How on earth had she ended up in a hospital? She really couldn't remember a thing.

When she finally decided to open her eyes. She had to shield them with her hand. Bright unnatural light filled the room. It was painful to say the least. Her head felt as if there was a tiny construction crew building a skyscraper inside of her skull. And then she noticed people. Who were these random people? She didn't have a single inkling of an idea.

Two men and a woman. The woman had curly dark hair and a disappointed look (which seemed rather permanent) on her face. She didn't seem very kind. The first man was shorter then the other. He had soft features and greying hair, even though he couldn't have been _that_ old.

Her eyes fell to the youngest man in the room. She felt like she had seen him from somewhere before. His face was _so_ familiar. He had dark curling hair and sharp features. He was utterly striking. Why on earth would he be in her hospital room? Joan didn't remember knowing any beautiful men. "She's awake." She heard the older man say.

Joan felt like she was under inspection. The white lights and everyone looking at her. It was a very uncomfortable situation. She had no idea why she was in the hospital or why random people were in her room. If anyone should be here, shouldn't it be her brother Harry? He was, after all, her emergency contact, no matter how insufferable he could get.

The dark haired man looked at her, his grey-blue-green eyes sad. Well, his face wasn't sad, it was a small infliction of his features that contorted the shadow of mystery that seemed to be permanently on his face. Joan somehow knew that that meant he was sad. "How did I get here?" She asked, her voice coming out in a croak. She must not have used it for a day or two. The throbbing in her head was still there, but it was dying down. She must be hooked up to some sort of pain killer. Most likely morphine.

"You were hit, on the head. Multiple times. Very,_ very_ hard." Said the doctor who just walked in. He checked her vitals and made sure everything was fine, asking her how she felt before walking out of the room again. He must not have been very concerned, or knew that maybe the people in the room wanted to have a little chat about who-knows-what.

More questions were pressing on her mind. The most prominent one vocalized itself. "Who are all of you?"

The older man rubbed the back of his neck nervously. He seemed off put by something, but she couldn't tell what. "Oh, I'm...er, Detective Inspector Lestrade." He said, looking altogether spooked by the introduction.

"Why are you in my hospital room? Who are the rest of you?" She asked. The Detective Inspector gave the younger man a look. He bent his head of dark, luscious curls down before sweeping out of the room, coat billowing around his feet like a cape or a robe.

Joan was absolutely confused.

"You'll have to excuse the Freak." Said the woman. "I'm Sally Donavan, Detective Sally Donavan." There was a bit of amusement in her voice. Joan wondered what could be so amusing and was off put by her Bond-like introduction.

Sherlock was distressed. That was the simplest way to put it. If he hadn't of enlisted Joan on his little adventure for the case, she wouldn't be in the situation she was in now. She had looked the same (minus the bandage on her head), sounded the same, everything was normal about her, except one thing. She just didn't remember anything.

The doctor had told him that it was highly probable that her memory would come back, but it would take time. Her brain had been jostled around in her skull when her assaulter slammed her to the ground. That obviously wasn't safe. He blamed himself for not paying closer attention.

Everything that had happened to her was his fault a thousand times over. No one could convince him it wasn't. So he vowed from now on it would be his mission to bring her back to health and protect her from any other harm.

He paced in front the window that looked into her room, looking up once or twice seeing her talk to Lestrade and Sally. After a few moments, Lestrade walked into the hallway, a troubled look painted on his features. "You've got to go talk to her."

Sherlock's head snapped up, rolling his eyes in only a way he could. Of course he had to talk to her, that what he's been thinking of since she'd been thrown to the ground. The only difficult part was finding the correct words to say. Sorry didn't seem to fit the mold and it wouldn't exactly mean anything since she would have no recollection of what he was apologizing for. "Thank you for your brilliant as always advice, Greyson." Sherlock said, lips dripping with sarcasm and frusteration.

He heard Lestrade mumble something like "Greg."

Quickly, he fix his long coat and scarf, walking into the hospital room a broad smile on his face. This time he didn't have to fake it (even though he was pained by the sight of her), it was for Joan.

"Yes, well I'm Sherlock Holmes, your flat mate. It seems you've had a nasty blow to the head and have forgotten about everything, but that's okay. I'm here to help you." His heart hurt, seeing the _very_ confused look on her face. He knew pleasant was the only way to go about things, introduction wise. And being blunt about her situation might help the comprehension of the entire affair.

He watched her with a calculated gaze as she absorbed all the information he had just given her, minimal as it was. "I have a flat mate?" She asked. Joan rubbed a hand across her face and met his gaze again, it being oddly intense for such a good-natured woman. "Are you my boyfriend?" She asked, not missing a beat.

Sherlock knew some demon or devil was out to get him. His face didn't move, but a blush was very much visible in the harsh lighting. "No." He said sternly. Obviously her assumption of being in a relationship with him came from the two sharing a flat together, but it still put butterflies in his stomach like an idiotic school boy. He quickly surpassed all those feelings. Now was not the time.

There were three things the William Sherlock Scott Holmes was aware of: He was stupidly in love with Joan Watson, that the decomposition of a dead body began right after death and she couldn't remember a single thing about him. In some world where everything worked out perfectly, Sherlock would know how to express his feelings and have the opportunity to do so once he figured out how. But he didn't. So he kept quietly to himself, living as if nothing got to him.

"Oh," She said lamely. Her gaze dropped his. "I think I need to sleep." And with that she rolled onto her side and shut her eyes.

Eventually Lestrade and Sally left, but Sherlock stayed. He watched her sleep. This was going to be one of the hardest things he has ever done.


	2. Chapter Two: Baby Steps

Chapter Two: Baby Steps

Sooner or later Joan Watson had become less confused. It had been two weeks since her pummeling from the thug. Her head hurt less, besides a few headaches every so often, and she was learning more about herself too. She had been in the army; a decorated captain, serving as a doctor. She wound up getting shot in action after three years in Afghanistan. After that, she was discharged and living on an army pension, which couldn't have been much. Nightmare plagued her from a war she barely remembered. After the army and being discharged things became much more clouded. She had listened to Sherlock tell her about their first cases and had him read her blog to her out loud, while she lay in the hospital bed.

It felt odd reading something she wrote about her and her…flat mate? She felt as if the memories wanted to meld back with her mind and body, but they just didn't _fit. _

Another complex situation was Sherlock and their relationship. She couldn't amount it to anything. He spoke of their past encounters as something endearing and sentimental, but then when he would do something or attempt to show any signs of comfort, he came off as cold. This just left Joan more confused then before. He would always look at her with those calculating grey-blue-green eyes as if she was a fact in a textbook that seemed to state that the sky was pink. Those moments gave her some of her worst headaches.

After the first couple days of Joan being in the hospital, she told Sherlock he could go home (their home?) and that he didn't have to stay all night. He eventually complied.

A week after she told him he didn't have to stay they had released her.

Sherlock met her early that morning. She had gotten dressed and pleated her hair (the doctor had told her that was a good idea, just incase she was having any trouble with her motor skills), waiting for him. "Ready?" He asked, looking her up and down. She would have thought it promiscuous if she hadn't have gotten to know him over the last two weeks. She gave him a small nod, making sure she had the pill bottles and instructions the nurse had given her.

Once outside he hailed a cab for them and opened her door. She slid in quietly, flipping through the contacts on her mobile. She didn't know half of these people. "221b Baker Street." Sherlock told the cabbie. She dropped her mobile in her lap and looked over at him.

"And you're comfortable in one of these knowing that I killed a cabbie and that a cabbie tried to kill you?" She asked, curiously. That's why she was having such trouble trying to define their relationship. They lived together, which seemed to be set up in a normal enough way, through a mutual friend (someone she actually remembered from her uni days), until the part where she killed someone to save his life after only knowing him for a day. But the more she thought about it the less farfetched it seemed. He was a brilliant man with an even more remarkable mind. It was truly a talent.

When he would stay with her during the day, he would deduce the nurse that chose to walk in at that moment, displaying his deduction skills to her. He would tell her their entire life story without asking any them a single question. At times it seemed a bit rude, but altogether it was just magnificent.

She saw his eyes quickly flicker from the window to her. "Of course I am." He said. Sherlock had told her early on that he trusted her with his life, which she was under the impression he cared dearly for. "Are you?"

"Yes," She said without haste.

Sherlock's heart threatened to burst. He had focused on rebuilding his fragile partnership with Joan, diligently, over the last two weeks. It was a lot more difficult then he first imagined. He was so accustomed to being himself around her and having her integrated into his lifestyle that he hadn't even realized how much he really depended on her. "Joan, before we move-" He stopped speaking when he noticed her with a stack of sticky notes and a pen, scribbling something onto it. "What are you doing?" He asked.

She finished what she was writing and placed it on the back of her mobile. "The doctor said it would be good. To write things down that I learn, so I can remember them easier. Like…" She lifted up her phone and showed the note to him. It said: _Sherlock gives vague replies. _He frowned.

"I do not give vague replies." He said, defiantly.

She raised her brows daringly. Only she would be able to get away with that look pointed at him. "Oh, yes you do. I've known you for two weeks and-"

Sherlock cut her off promptly, his heart dropping into his stomach for the second time today. "Two years. Two and a half years." He wanted to look away and get angry and throw a fit. Why must it have been Joan? It was _so_ stereotypical of the universe to pick on people in such ways.

She nodded, her eyes going a bit downcast. She added to the note that was stuck to the back of her mobile. _Two and a half years_, it said. Sherlock would have said more, but the cab rolled up to Baker Street. He tossed a few pounds towards the cab driver before getting out. He didn't wait for Joan to open the door and walk inside.

Mrs. Hudson wasn't home, most likely at the shop. He was halfway up the stairs, taking them two at a time, when he heard Joan shut the door to the foyer. She was behind him in no time. At least her limp hadn't come back, but he did notice the slight tremor in her left hand. Most likely from being cooped up in a hospital for two weeks.

Joan walked in, trialing behind Sherlock. He was already seated in a chair that faced another, smaller one across the sitting room. _Must be mine_, she thought to herself. She removed her jacket and hung it on the rack next to his infamous long black one. "So, um, where is the kettle?" She asked, really needing a cup of tea.

"Top cupboard, to the right." He said. Sherlock had his mobile out, texting furiously, the clicks of the touch-screen keyboard filling the quiet flat. Joan sighed and set the pill bottles on the kitchen table, before finding the kettle right where he said it was. She filled it with water and waited.

"So, any plans?" She asked, scrawling down where the kettle was on a brightly colored sticky note and placing it on the cupboard door. She leaned her elbows on the table, looking at him. He wasn't paying the slightest attention to her. "Sherlock!" She said loudly, maybe a bit more loud then she had meant to be.

His head snapped up from his phone. He was giving her an expectant look. Typical of him, from what she had seen. "Got any plans for today?" She asked again, her voice more irritated and pressing. Everyone else she had encountered treated him like he was some sort of freak or ticking time bomb that might explode at any given moment. Joan didn't see him that way. She saw him as misunderstood and lost, even if he constantly held that air of arrogance that said 'I'm smarter then you,'. It was as if she was the only friend he had. The more she was around him the more she understood why she was attracted to him so much. No not that way. (Okay maybe a little.)

"Plans? As in cases, yes. Lestrade just texted me. He has a kidnapped boy and a murdered father. Care to join me?" He asked. Joan raised an eyebrow at him. He didn't seem off put at all by the idea of going out and investigating a murder at the drop of a hat. He seemed to notice her gaze. "That is if…you're feeling up to it. I can hardly expect you to jump right back into running around London with me. You were just discharged from the hospital today." He added quickly.

Joan picked up her pen and wrote something down quickly. Go and investigate a murder with your flat mate you don't remember? She thought of her options. Sit at the flat, bored and alone or look at dead bodies with a handsome smart man. Dead bodies seemed more appealing. "We should go look at the case for…" Joan was having trouble remembering the Detective Inspector's name.

"Lestrade."

"Right, Lestrade."

Sherlock quickly bounded from his chair and swiftly put on his coat. He wrapped the blue scarf tightly around his neck. Joan followed, hurriedly, putting on her coat as well and heading out the door. In her wake she had abandoned the kettle and the note that read: _I love him. I love him?_


	3. Chapter 3: Who Am I?

Depend on Me Chapter 3: Who Am I?

The cases ended up being rather dull. Or at least that's what Sherlock had said. He seemed to have a sort of ranking system for cases (not finding it fitting to leave the flat for anything but a six) and the one they just went on was a mild five. Joan, on the other hand, didn't seem to think that at all. It was a brilliant spiraling tale of how a man was found dead with a stab wound, no weapon and soaking wet even though there hadn't been any bad weather, or rain.

Sherlock solved it quickly, taking only a few drawn out moments to collect the data needed for his deductions. After he figured it out, he explained to everyone else, very _dramatically_ might she add, how the murderer used an icicle to kill the man, insinuating that he had to keep it cold and couldn't have been keeping it too far away from where the murder had been, and soon enough found his lodgings/hide-out. (Joan also found out that Sherlock hated to word 'hide-out').

There was a lot of groaning in the cab on the way home about how the case was so simple and he needed something more involved. Joan didn't find it simple at all, far from it even. She found his deductions to be all the more interesting on an actual crime scene then the stories and blog post that she was informed about in the hospital. No matter how queer or odd Sherlock came off as, she now fully understood her attraction to him. He drew her in with a magnetic force that only he could muster up somehow. Joan was never a follower before; no, in fact she was always Captain. His gift and talents amazed her, but didn't excuse his poor behavior, which she scolded him for occasionally.

The pair made it to the flat, Joan taking a seat in what she ad been told was her chair, flipping through a medical journal. That was something she remembered, the practice. Medical school and everything before that was a constant in her life. Her days in the army were coming back, along with those nightmares and the awful things that had happened and she had done.

She was quickly reminded of why she joined the army; because her father had, and the fact that she couldn't move back in with her mum. He was her best friend before his he had passed, and was also a veteran. Joan had figured he would be proud of her. The night she remembered about him, she had cried herself to sleep. There was the distant sound of a violin in the background. When she woke up from nightmares about things she hardly remembered, but were still awful images, she had a feeling the music was Sherlock's way of calming her down. When she looked around the flat the memory of a violin would come to her. Not Sherlock, but his sound.

"I called Harry." She said, not looking up from her medical journal. She had called him this morning and her brother was...Not who she remembered. But the Harry she had known and had grown close to was one before the war. This wasn't the Harry who would take hits from their mum for her, at least not anymore.

Sherlock's long legs were stretched out in front of him as he slouched lazily in his chair across from her. He was idly plucking at his violin, the sound a novice to the world, or at least the building, but she didn't mind too much. His steel grey irises shot over to her. He seemed concerned, even if the only thing that had done was move his eyes. Joan admired Sherlock's grace. Even when he was bustling about a dead body he looked like a magnificent ballet dancer; or an elegant, posh flick of the eyes.

"Why are you telling me this?" He asked in his smooth, deep voice, turning his attention back to the strings of his instrument. Joan huffed a sigh, shaking her head. She had trouble figuring out what was right to tell him and what she should hold back. He was open about his brother with her, so should she be with hers? So many rules and checks and balances and...And her relationship with Sherlock Holmes was like an acrobatic act, flying around and trying to grip at something, sometimes slipping on the bar. She supposed before she was at a loss for her memories she had a tight grip on the bar. Now she just constantly felt like she was fumbling, about to fall into oblivion. It was a terrible feeling, but also an exciting one, which also frightened her.

Joan bit her bottom lip, the small blonde shaking her head. "I suppose I'm not going to anymore then." Joan bit back. _Since when was she snippy with him?_ The D.I. had told her she was the best at standing up to Sherlock or jumping right into a mess with him. Up until now she had just jumped in. Never held back, or told him what she felt.

"Thank you." Sherlock retorted with a small smile, never once looking up from his violin. "I can already tell from the slightly disappointed look on your face you've discovered his alcoholism and most likely his divorce from his husband, Clark." Sherlock replied, adjusting one of the strings and plucking it again. So he wasn't just being useless in his mind (which she never suspected, but at least it wasn't murder). He was tuning the damn thing, mind and violin. Joan frowned for a moment before pushing herself up from her chair and walking irately towards the kitchen.

That was it, something, some bubble of anger within her popped. Joan couldn't take it. She couldn't take living with someone who knew more about her life then she did. Then again, everyone knew more about her then she did. Joan had been wanting to say that Sherlock was hiding his feelings for her, but that would be a long shot. Sherlock didn't have a lot of feelings. No, actually he had two: Murder and Sulk. And even then, they weren't very expressive. She knew he was holding back from her, he had to be. A single person couldn't be that shut off, even for a sociopath.

Joan licked her lips out of habit and moved towards the cupboard to get the kettle, slamming it down on the counter just a little too hard, making her self jump. She could hear rustling from the sitting room and had a feeling Sherlock was coming to help her. With what she had no idea.

"Joan, " Called a deep, rumbling voice that could only belong to him. She kept her back turned, a tiny glare pointed at the tile on the wall of their kitchen, trying not to relish in the sound of his baritone vocals.

"Don't!" She snapped at him, spinning around on the spot and pointing a delicate (but not so delicate) finger at him. "Don't you dare try to console me, or tell me how to feel or what to do. This is my bloody life and you know more about it then I do!" She shouted at him, feeling ignorant in his presence in more then one way, not wavering where she stood, even if she knew he towered above her by at least a foot.

Sherlock just stood there, his back a bit more rigid and a single eyebrow arched up. He had learned to accept the abusive words and brush them off in the past, not caring either way, even from someone close. _They_ were all just carbon footprints in the end.

"I was getting the cups. I've put them too high." Sherlock said, reaching over the blonde who's pointed look was still on him, but her finger finally pointed away from him, setting the cups down on the counter next to the empty kettle. Obviously the cups thing was a lie. He wanted to comfort her in some form or manner, but didn't know how. It was obvious outburst of anger would happen, but he didn't realize it would feel like this when directed towards him. When people shouted he could block them out. With Joan it wasn't so easy.

"Liar." The shorter muttered, her gaze moving from him and towards the kettle, filling it in the sink and then turning it on. He stood there, unmoving as she dashed about, making tea, not meeting his eyes again.

"Joan, I'm not lying. I got you the cups, didn't I? And I also want to say…" What was it he truly wanted to say? His mind was travelling in five million different directions and he was finding it a bit difficult to keep objective on this one thing, this singular person who mattered so much to him. He needed to help his small flat mate any way he could, but obviously she wasn't taking any help anytime soon.

Sherlock could hear the massive sigh that Joan let out, sending a shiver down his spine, _and_ it was a little dramatic, even by his standards. "Say it then. Tell me I'm screwed up and look at me as if it's my fault that I can't remember a damn thing." She spit out at him, banging a mug down on the counter, sending shards of ceramic outwards in a miniature explosion of controlled rage. She let out a hiss of pain and he automatically knew she had cut herself, or embedded a piece of ceramic into her hand.

Sherlock didn't say that he knew her loss of memory, amnesia, heartache was hard. Of course it was hard. There were no words to explain how he would feel if all the information stored in his head suddenly went away. He fully blamed himself for Joan's case, but held too much pride to ever say that out loud. "You're being dramatic." He commented, stalking over towards the bathroom, retrieving the first-aid kit and then walking back toward Joan.

It took several minutes to clean up her hand and by the time they had finished a through talk about the safety of one's own person in the house and how much she used to get onto him for it, she had a bandage on her hand and a more soft look on her face.

"I'm sorry I raised my voice." Joan muttered, her china-blue eyes not exactly meeting his, but coming so close he still felt his heart beat quicken a little. Sherlock raised a brow and gave her his customary shrug.

Joan kept staring at him for a moment, leaning foreword in anticipation of words that might leave his lips, as if him giving her an answer to things she asked was normal. "I mean it." She continued, making him scramble for words now.

"I know." _Wrong_. He should not be saying that, but harsh and disconnected came so easily. It was only Joan he wanted to work on, becoming more genuine with her, despite his brother's wishes.

Her eyebrows knit together and suddenly the small blonde turned from him, moving to go up the stairs to her room, which she had been spending more time in now. "_Wait_." Sherlock heard himself say before his brain told him to do so.

"I, uh, apologize." He began, realizing a ball was beginning to roll and he had no idea how to stop it, and he didn't like not knowing things. "For all of this. There are many things I don't know how to do. And being a best friend or whatnot for you is one of those things. You mean more to me then any other human being has. I don't do sentiment well, but I'm trying. Hopefully I'll start to do it a little harder." He admitted, grey eyes locked on the back her head, almost admiring the braid she had it in.

Without a word she made a move as if she was going to look back at him, say something, anything, but instead walked the rest of the way up the stairs.


End file.
